Day 13 - The Milky Way

The music today wasn't a particular song, but rather a certain decade. We listened to 80's music for most of the day. It was pretty fun listening to the variety of music that compromised the top 25 songs in the 80's.

The temperature is dropping the next few days so that will be nice. It's actually chilly in the barracks tonight. Hopefully no one cranks up the fans...that will make it downright cold.

I got my hair cut today. It was the same guy that cut it last time. He did a better job on it this time than he did last time. The barbers here are pretty hit or miss. If someone is waiting to get cut they pretty much rush through the cut to get the next customer.

As we start to get nearer to our actual deployment time it's interesting to see the shift in mindsets. Everyone is racking their brain about what to bring with them. Everyone is wondering what it will be like when we get to where we are going. Granted we have a pretty good idea what our living and working area will be like, there are still a lot of questions.

Will the PX have my brand of ______________. What will the days be like? When will it start to get cold? What is the gym like? How will I arrange my room? Do I have enough socks/t-shirts/boots/knives?

Speaking of getting cold, we were issued tons of cold weather gear. I've been in the Army for over 10 years and I have never seen so much cold weather gear. It's kind of funny, when I talk to people about where I'm going they basically think that Afghanistan is nothing but a desert, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Granted, there are some parts of the country that are pretty much a desert, but most of the country is pretty temperate.

In fact, where we are going, the temperatures are very similar to what we have in Indiana. The main difference is that they get less precipitation that we do here. The hours of daylight are also shifted slightly with the sun rising earlier and the sun setting earlier.

One thing that I'm really looking forward to is the nights. There is basically zero artificial light in the area. There are no white lights allowed at night on the base and the city near us has little light. People say that when you look up at the stars there are more stars than you even think possible. It's even so dark that you can see the Milky Way. How cool is that?

Ok, it's late and it's another early day in a few hours.